good alternatives to raspberry pi which are cheap and efficient?
Hello , dear lemmy users , I am starting to really like self-host because they are really fast and mostly i use open source stuff (like lemmy /photon etc) which were sometimes slow but after self hosting it now on the pc i am on using , i really like it
Now , I would like to host some stuff like jellyfin , navindrome , photon , adgaurd home and just leave it running on a device in maybe near future (i can convince my brother to pay for it , after he gets his job maybe)
TLDR : I wanted to ask What's your favourite alternative to raspberry pi for simple self hosting or maybe possible near home automation
Edit: thank you all for helping me , I am starting to believe that i should look into using dell wyse or the likes which are meant to be used for hosting or a old laptop (since i dont own a laptop anyway , i just own a pc ) and since i run linux anyways , i am thinking of owning a laptop dual booting it with alpine (that has docker) and a simple minimalist os like hyprland on it just in case i need to travel with it (which to me seems very unlikely , I dont travel much so..) I am confused about it
Edit 2 : I am very new to self hosting so currently i would run stuff on my pc only (using portainer) , However when needed to buy , i am thinking of buying the cheapest thin client maybe a nuc or dell wyse
I am already trying searxng , shiori(bookmark manager) , portainer,freshrss , photon , froodle-s pdf tool which i have all closed except portainer currently I am also thinking of shifting to podman as well but cant find a good gui for it like portainer , (portainer really just blew my mind with its templates)
I've recently been looking into ESP32 programming - they're microcontrollers with onboard Bluetooth and WiFi, that are smaller yet more powerful than Arduinos. Randomnerdtutorials gets recommended a lot elsewhere; I believe I saw one tutorial for running a web server on an ESP32.
If you need a full OS and/or more resources, I'm not sure raspberry pi can be beaten (at least, that's how the market was years ago when I was looking)
You alluded to this already but ESP32 et al is really awesome but they (and arduino) are microcontrollers, not mini pcs like a raspi which have very different purposes.
You CAN run a webserver on a microcontroller but you’re essentially writing a program to do so. On a raspi you’re installing a full OS and then installing apps (nginx, Apache, jellyfin etc).
Conversely raspi has GPIO which can be used to easily interface with electronics just like the ESP32 but now you’re stuck maintaining a whole os to make your LED blink.
Running a webserver is not the same as hosting a service. For the software examples requested by OP, an ESP32 is useless
Ah must've skimmed over that part, my bad. The home automation part jumped out to me
It's Alright but for me microcontrollers like the one you told me are out of way since i need to run most and foremost docker for things like jellyfin /adgaurd home etc.